Not Exactly a Prank Call
by Scarabbug
Summary: The Knight Industries Two Thousand has a message to deliver. One shot.


…**Can you **_**have**_** spoilers for a series over twenty years old? **

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****Writer's Note****: My first attempt at this particular fandom. I am actually guessing on the fact that certain identities were never known or revealed in the storyline, so some facts about this fanfiction may be incorrect. I would appreciate them being pointed out if they exist. Reviews and concrit are **_**especially**_** appreciated seeing as a I could have some major glitches here.**

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Not Exactly a Prank Call.

The sound wakes her at three thirty am. Not rocks being thrown or angry swearing (not that she's ever put up with that but their little community hasn't gotten any peace since those damn ruffians moved in down the street), but the sound of a car horn screeching in her driveway. Andrea hasn't had a car in her driveway for years now. She knows it's nothing to do with her.

'Damned kids…' is all she can think to say and then she spends a moment weighing up her options. She can't hear angry voices or swearing but she knows an attempt to get someone's attention when she hears it. She can stay here, ignore them, give them nothing to laugh at, or she can take up that stick of hers and go see if she needs to bash in any car windows.

Last week all the trashcans in the streets had been turned over and dumped in the road, graffiti had appeared on the pavements… the police had been called of course, but without proof or witnesses, there's nobody to arrest. The family knows they're untouchable. God only knew what else they were up to in that house of theirs.

And now they were messing with an old woman… as if they have no shame whatsoever. And what about the other people in the street? Her friends and neighbours of thirty long years? Be damned is she's going to sit here any longer and watch them being tormented.

Andrea long climbs out of bed and grabs her dressing gown from the cupboard door. She creeps to the window and peers out through the gap in the curtains. There below her, almost in her driveway but not quite, sits a streamlined back car of the calibre nobody in this community could ever hope to afford. Its lights are blazing down the street (going right through Mrs Allan's windows, too, the poor woman who has five kids to look after as a single parent and a twelve hour day at the store. Andrea hopes she hasn't been woken up by the rumpus). Its windows are blacked out so she can't see the driver and… It's a fancy thing, alright. A Trans am very similar to…

Similar to…

Andrea feels her skin prickling with cold. She knows it's ridiculous, of course. She hasn't owned a car for years, much less a Trans Am Firebird. Much less…

Andrea carefully picks up the cane she was given by a doctor after her knee injury, but has hardy ever used since. She can think of a use for it now alright.

As she approaches the door and makes her unsteady way down the stairs any anxiety Andrea has is replaced with anger and fury. How _dare _they? How dare those brats treat her son's memory in such a way?

She would have thought they'd have better things to do than pick on an old woman. Not that Andrea long has ever felt her age. Sixty-two years old, and yet she still attempts her Tai Bo classes in town. Still visits the same hairdresser she did when she was seventeen. Still imagines pushing a pram up the sidewalk with all the skill of a rally driver.

Only that last one makes her feel as old as she should. She's felt a lot older in general since the day the officers brought home her son's uniform.

When she opens the door, the car doesn't screech its tyres and drive off the way she expected it to. In fact, the horn beeping merely stops and she hears the whirring of a window coming down. Andrea approaches with her cane raised and a harsh word poised on her lips, ready to snap. Ready to make these ruffians regret they ever messed with the people she loves. Making them regret what they're doing…

Except that as she approaches, she sees that there is nobody there on whom to force her wrath.

No driver.

The car has no driver. The lights are on but nobody's home. Both seats are empty, yet the dashboard twinkles with light and life.

Life? What a strange thing to think. Andrea backs away on impulse the way she might back away from a hot stove, but only for a second. Her body is trembling without her consent.

'What in the name of…'

The car engine continues to run, chill and soft in the background. The street is dark and endless all around her and the lights inside are strange and warm. No matter how she looks around her, Andrea can't work out where a driver might be hiding or how one could possibly have gotten out of the car so quickly… after she opened the front door, the horn had still been beeping.

That's when Andrea sees the letter sitting on the passenger seat. It's pure, plain white and the flap is sealed shut. The name on the front is typed and formal

**ANDREA LONG.**

'Is that…' Andrea's mouth feels desert dry and she knows her words sound ridiculous. There's no one to talk to. This makes no sense to her. 'Is that… for me?'

The lights on the car's dashboard flickered in sequence.

It was one of those new fangled trick cars she'd heard them talk about on the news, maybe? She wonders where the remote control is hidden. She wonders who sent it here, she wonders…

Andrea reaches inside the car window and carefully, (gingerly, as if it might explode at any moment) picks up the letter. The car window carefully closes, almost gently, after her hand is fully drawn away, and then there is silence. The engines die but the lights remain on, as if to guide her as she opens the letter with trembling fingers.

Andrea's mind reminds her that this is a prank. A cruel, foolish trick, if a very clever one. But surely the hoodlums down the road had never had access to such a fancy looking piece of machinery before? Andrea had spent enough time around her son to know that this kind of vehicle isn't the type you pick up at a bargain basement.

She pauses, her fingers wrapped tightly around the letter just inside the envelope. 'Should I…'

The car lights flicker again. If she hadn't known better, Andrea could've sworn it was trying to communicate with her… Of course that idea is ridiculous. As ridiculous as the thought of her son coming back from the dead to haunt her. More ridiculous than the thought of the car being here in the first place with no driver and no signs of anyone nearby.

Stupid pranks. Stupid games. She should just crunch the letter up and leave it for the trash men in the morning. But she doesn't. She pulls out the crisp, folded yellow paper.

_Dear Mom,_

Andrea stops reading for a moment. Takes a deep breath, acknowledges that no, the handwriting she's looking at is not faked. She continues reading…

_I hope to god you, and everyone I know never have to read this, but I have to assume that you are. It's me, and I want to say goodbye properly… _

The writing is a familiar scrawl. The type that used to leave notes whenever it's owner came round for a visit and found she wasn't there. The kind that used to write birthday cards and sign documents for her, helping her understand them when she couldn't make out the technical mumbo jumbo.

It's… proof.

The proof she never really believed she'd had before. Andrea's cheeks are damp but she doesn't realise until she sees the wetness falling on the paper. She's trembling again, but it isn't through fear. The car's engines have turned strangely silent and…

…And the car doesn't matter anymore anyway. Nor does its driver, wherever he is. It's no prank. It's better and worse than a prank and.

Andrea's fingers tighten about the letter.

'Oh, _Michael_…'

She stays on the steps for a few moments longer, reading the letter –all eight pages of it– by the light of the moon and the Pontiac's headlamps. Only then does she return to the house, cane forgotten and left on the driveway.

Andrea Long is not at all surprised, and nor does she approach the window to take one last look at it, as she hears the car's engine start up again as soon as she is back inside. She merely sits at the end of her bed, smiling, the letter clutched tightly in her hands, as the steady sound of the Trans Am vehicle vanishes into the night.

_**Fin.

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End file.
